Scott Pratt - An Innocent Client

Landers did a quick head count. There were six people, all men, at the bar to his right and another thirty or so sitting at counters and tables around the stages. Besides the dancers and two waitresses, who were wearing extremely attractive tight white nurse’s outfits, there wasn’t a woman in the place. Landers didn’t see Erlene Barlowe anywhere.

He took a seat at a table toward the back. The redhead on stage was magnificent. She had a gorgeous face and she kept throwing her head around and making her hair fly. Her legs were long, her butt was tight, her breasts were small and firm, and she could move. Landers was sitting there fantasizing about taking her into the bathroom and showing her a good time when one of the nurses stopped by the table. Her little top was a zip-up that hadn’t been zipped up very far. Parts of her were falling out all over the place.

“What can I get you, honey?” she said.

“Club soda. Twist of lime.” The nurse gave Landers a look of contempt when he ordered the club soda. He would much rather have had a whiskey, but he never knew what might happen in a raid. He needed to stay sharp.

Nurse Betty brought his club soda a couple of minutes later. Cost him five-fifty. She gave him an even more contemptible look when he didn’t give her a tip. Landers called Jimmy Brown at 10:45. The raid was supposed to start at eleven straight up. Landers could barely hear Brown over the music. Brown said they were just pulling off the interstate. They’d be in position in five minutes.

That’s when Landers saw Erlene Barlowe, still wearing the leather pants and cheetah top she’d been wearing earlier in the day. She was standing by the bar. Nurse Betty was talking in her ear and pointing in Landers’s direction. The music had stopped and the disc jockey was telling the customers that touching the girls wasn’t allowed. Erlene spotted Landers and headed straight for him.

“Are you here to arrest me, handsome?” she said when she got to the table. “Or are you just a bad boy looking for a good time?”

“You remember the guy I was asking you about? The dead guy who wasn’t here? He withdrew some money out of the ATM machine out there in your lobby last night.”

“Well I swan, honey, I must have just missed him somehow.”

“My name isn’t honey. It’s Landers. Special Agent Landers. And you’re about to find out how much I hate it when sluts lie to me.” Landers took out his phone and dialed Jimmy Brown. “You guys ready?”

“All set. Standing outside the front door.”

“Go.”

There was a scream from the lobby, and the door banged open. SWAT officers in black combat gear and helmets came rushing in. They looked like Navy SEALs. They had their weapons up and were yelling, “Police! Get on the floor! Get on the floor!”

Landers stood up and pointed his. 38 at Erlene Barlowe’s face.

“This is a raid,” he said. “Get your hands up against that wall and don’t move until I tell you to.”

The look on her face was priceless.

April 26

11:00 a.m.

Two weeks after my birthday, I finished up a hearing on a drug case in federal court in Greeneville and had just gotten in my truck to drive back to Johnson City when I looked at my cell phone and saw a text message from Caroline: “Call me. Urgent.”

Caroline had taken on the job as my secretary/paralegal two years earlier, after we made the decision that I was getting out. Since I was taking fewer cases, I needed to cut down on my overhead. The classes Caroline taught at her dance studio were held in the evenings, so she volunteered. When the lease was up on my office downtown, I helped my secretary find a job at another law firm and moved the essentials out to my house. The move saved me almost sixty thousand dollars a year, and Caroline took an on-line course and got herself certified as a paralegal. She turned out to be a quick study. I still had a small conference room downtown where I met clients, but it only cost me two hundred a month.

“What’s up?” I said when Caroline answered the phone.

“Could be good, could be bad,” she said. “A woman named Erlene Barlowe called early this morning. She was frantic. She said the police barged into her house and arrested a young friend of hers for murder and that she needed to hire a lawyer. She kept saying the girl couldn’t have done it.”

Right.

“She wants to meet with you. It’s been a long time since you’ve been hired privately on a murder case.”

“Billy Dockery’s mother hired me.” I’d never told anyone about Billy’s confession. Not even Caroline.

“You made a lot of money on that case, didn’t you?”

“Fifty thousand.”

“We could use it.”

“I thought we were in good shape.”

“We are, but a murder case? And this one could be big money, babe. It’s the case where the preacher was murdered. The one who was found in the motel room.”

“I don’t want to take on a murder case, Caroline, high profile or low profile. It could go on for years.”

“That’s why I didn’t make her an appointment.” She sounded disappointed.

I thought about it for a minute, weighing the pros and the cons. Curiosity finally got the best of me.

“Ah, what the heck, it won’t hurt to talk to her. Call her back and have her meet me downtown at one.”

It took me an hour to drive back to Johnson City. I ate a quick lunch at a cafe about two blocks from my conference room and walked in the door about ten minutes before one. There was a woman sitting at the table waiting for me. She stood when I came in. It was all I could do to keep my jaw from dropping. She was dressed in tight, black spandex pants and an orange and black tiger-striped top that nearly exposed the nipples on her very substantial breasts. Her hair was a shade of red I’d never seen before, on or off a woman’s head.

“Joe Dillard,” I said as I shook her hand. Her fingernails were at least an inch long and painted the same design as her shirt.

“Erlene Barlowe. You’re even better-looking in person than you are on television.” She smiled, and when I looked her in the eye, I saw that despite the shocking outfit, she was an attractive woman. I motioned toward the chair.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Barlowe?”

“Oh, honey, I have the most terrible problem. It’s just awful. A very close young lady friend of mine has been arrested for a crime she didn’t commit.”

“Close friend?”

“More like a daughter. I sort of took her in about a month ago.”

“Start from the beginning, Ms. Barlowe. Tell me everything you want me to know.”

“Please, sugar, call me Erlene. I suppose I should start by telling you that I own the Mouse’s Tail Gentlemen’s Club. My husband and I owned it together, but he passed away last year and now I’m running it. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you out there.”

I laughed. “Haven’t had the pleasure. I’ve heard a lot about it, though.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. We’ve had several lawyers come and go over the years. A couple of judges, too.”

Which judges? I considered asking her, but then I decided I didn’t want to know. I didn’t care what they did. Before long, I’d be moving on.

“Tell me about your friend.”

“Have you heard they made an arrest in the murder of that pastor from Newport? The one who was stabbed?”

“I think everybody’s heard.”

“She didn’t do it, Mr. Dillard. I’d swear it on a stack of bibles. I want to hire you to represent her.”

“How do you know she didn’t do it?”

“Because I was with her all night. I drove her home from the club after her shift ended. She lives at my place and she never went out. She couldn’t have done it. And besides that, she’s the sweetest, kindest little thing you’ll ever meet. She wouldn’t so much as step on a bug, let alone kill a human being.”